


When You're Looking For Someone You Can Rely On

by singing_to_empty_caves



Series: That's What Bein' A Friend Is About [3]
Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings
Genre: Battle, Friendship, Minor Injuries, lloyd is a good loyal friend, school? no, wholesome content, you don't need textbooks to save the planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 00:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21347254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singing_to_empty_caves/pseuds/singing_to_empty_caves
Summary: In the early stages of a new friendship, Ninten and Lloyd find out that they really do have each other's backs--at the cost of Lloyd's school supplies.
Relationships: Lloyd & Ninten (Mother 1)
Series: That's What Bein' A Friend Is About [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1524248
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	When You're Looking For Someone You Can Rely On

“You really met a magical queen?”

“Yep! I got kinda lost in her castle, but when I found her, she gave me this neat little ocarina. It’s sorta like a flute.”

Lloyd nodded thoughtfully. “That’s really interesting. Do you know any songs?”

“Not really any long ones--not like on the radio, anyways,” Ninten explained. “But I know some little tunes I learned from a buncha different places--ya know, when I set out to stop the Weird-ified.”

“What kinds of places?”

“Well, the zoo, for one.”

Lloyd glanced around at the trees around them. “And how far away from the zoo are we now?”

“I’m not sure, but I know we’re gettin’ close to the factory. Hey, thanks for comin’ with me--I gotta clear those tracks so I can keep goin’,” Ninten said.

Lloyd had seen plenty of that toothy grin since they left the school, and Ninten’s optimism was near-constant. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it--how bad would things have to get to seriously bother him?

“You’re welcome,” Lloyd replied. “I really don’t mind it. I get to set off a rocket!”

Ninten laughed, but in the ensuing silence, he adopted an unsettled expression. Lloyd was about to ask what it was for when an eagle swooped right in front of his face. He screamed and stumbled backwards, only to see another eagle join the first one. Their eyes were crazed, and their beaks somehow looked like they were grinning. That made no sense! Beaks didn’t work that way!

“Go hide!” Ninten shouted. “I’ll take care a’ these guys!”

“A-are these the Weird-ified?”

“Yes! And they’ll hurt you, so go hide!”

Lloyd nodded and ran as quickly as he could to sit in the shadows behind a tree. He could hear wild squawking, and Ninten’s bat colliding with various parts of their bodies. Was he gonna kill them?! Against his better judgement, he peeked around the tree.

Ninten was, in fact, swatting them with a bat. But instead of getting hurt by it, the eagles were flashing like strobe lights with every hit. Lloyd was fascinated by it.

Then Ninten got a nasty swipe from a set of talons, and he stumbled backwards from the eagles. Lloyd could see his teeth biting down onto his lip, like he was trying not to make any sounds that would show he was hurt. It didn’t make sense, unless he thought those eagles were blind--his shirt was cut open, and there was blood coming out of three long wounds.

Lloyd wasn’t one to rush headlong into danger--usually. This time, he remembered taking an oath not to turn against Ninten. Did that include letting him get hurt?

The other eagle swooped down, and Ninten let out a shout this time. Lloyd didn’t take any more time to debate.

Ninten’s bottle rocket was still in Lloyd’s backpack, and he pulled it out and set it up. Usually, a rocket would go straight up, but the eagles weren’t exactly after Lloyd right now, so he’d have to improvise.

The rocket’s velocity came from a powerful jet of water, set off by a sudden release of the pressure inside the bottle. If he just pointed it at the eagles, the water wouldn’t catch on a reliable surface, and the rocket might spin out of control. Lloyd glanced around, then gasped as an idea struck him.

He pulled out all of his hardcover textbooks. Hopefully, the rigid covers wouldn’t suffer too much from a jet of water, and they would also provide a more stable surface. To keep them together as one larger panel, Lloyd dug out the rubber bands he’d brought to school for an art project months ago and never put back in their place.

Once the makeshift launch pad was complete, Lloyd wasted no time in propping it up with a fallen branch to his right. He positioned the rocket for launch, then watched the eagles carefully to time his attack.

At the exact moment both eagles lined up, Lloyd released the pressure in the rocket and watched it fly straight at them. To his surprise, the rocket caused more bright flashes, and then the eagles fell to the ground. Their beaks turned back to normal, and they stood and shook their heads before flying off.

“Ninten!” Lloyd shouted. He ran to his friend, textbooks forgotten.

When Lloyd approached him, Ninten was breathing heavily, staring at the discarded bottle rocket. Then he looked up at Lloyd, and his eyes were shining with… awe, or respect, or something else Lloyd was unfamiliar with.

“You blew ‘em up!” Ninten laughed. “You honestly, really launched a rocket at ‘em!”

“Forget that, are you okay?” Lloyd asked. “Those scratches look like they hurt!”

“No big deal. PSI Life-up,” Ninten said. The talon scratches faded to shallow cuts almost immediately.

“Wait, what?! How did you--”

“No, Lloyd, we’re talkin’ about you! Who’d’a thought a brainiac like you would stand up to monsters like that? You were amazing!”

Ninten’s enthusiasm and praise made Lloyd feel proud of himself, too. Still, he was only keeping his promise.

“I swore an oath not to turn my back on you,” Lloyd reminded Ninten.

Something about what Lloyd said made Ninten’s eyes widen. Rather than flashing his usual grin, he adopted a smile full of wonder.

“You’re a fantastic pal, ya know that?” Ninten said.

Lloyd shrugged and adjusted his glasses. “You are, too.”

Ninten looked over Lloyd’s shoulder at the site of the launch, and he gasped. “Lloyd, your books!”

Lloyd turned around to see that the textbooks were completely ruined. The covers were torn up from the impact of the water, and all of the pages were soaked.

“Oh, no,” Lloyd groaned.

“Aw, man, I didn’t mean for you to ruin your stuff! I’m sorry.”

Before Lloyd could say anything in response, Ninten pulled out a startling stack of money from his backpack. “Here, you can have this to buy new books.”

“That’s a lot of money!” Lloyd said in disbelief.

“Yeah, my dad sends it to me ‘cause I’m out on my own. Well… I _was_ on my own,” Ninten corrected.

Lloyd couldn’t help but smile. “Well, all right. Thanks, Ninten!”

“No worries! It’s the least I can do after you saved my skin there.”

Ninten handed Lloyd the money, and then he closed his backpack again.

“Are all of the Weird-ified like that?” Lloyd asked.

“Like what?”

“All… crazy in the eyes, and going after you for no good reason.”

Ninten shrugged, already starting on his way again. “Yeah, it’s not exactly a walk in the park. This whole ‘saving the world’ thing, I mean. Takes a lot a’ guts, and ya can’t let your fear get the best of ya. Although, it looks like you won’t have any problems with that.”

“I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Well, I don’t want you to get hurt, either.” Ninten perked up. “Hey! When we were at the store earlier, they had a boomerang. Maybe you could use one a’ those, instead of havin’ to get up close like I do.”

“Well…”

“I can afford it,” Ninten reminded him. “And even if ya never use it, I’d like to know you can defend yourself. Just in case.”

Ninten had grown awfully protective of Lloyd over the past few hours of exploration, but Lloyd didn’t feel like Ninten thought he was better than his new friend. In fact, it was more like Ninten was trying to protect some priceless thing he still couldn’t believe had come into his hands.

“Just in case,” Lloyd agreed quietly, thinking about how lucky he was to have found a friend like Ninten.

“Yeah. Hey, maybe we should go back to town first, just to grab that boomerang and maybe some food. You’d be surprised at how much good a snack can do ya!”

Lloyd found himself smiling at Ninten, almost as wide as Ninten’s signature expression. “I’d like that.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m _starvin’!_” Ninten declared.

He turned and practically skipped towards Thanksgiving, trusting Lloyd to follow--which he did, completely forgetting the books lying in a puddle on the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
I love wholesome kid friendship, and I'm not ashamed to write it. :)  
Feedback is always welcome!


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